The Moon Pulls Me Towards Her

Part II - Alexander

When thinking back, you wonder: How did I become the person I am today? What has happened that has defined the path I have taken in life? Is it a slow change happening over time, or are there some specific moments in my past that themselves have changed me, so that I can speak of the person I was before, and the person I became after. I have several of these moments, that I can name. Most recently, when I found my mate, before that, when I shifted, and even before that, when I, aged eight years, had promised Isabeal, to protect her, the night after our father died.

I can't have been older than six or seven, when my father, a pack fighter and the younger brother of the Alfa, sat me on an old chest in the upstairs bedroom, to have a man-talk, before he went to fight for the Pack. I was so proud of being old enough to have one such conversation. I still remember every word he said.

One day, Alec, there might come a day, when I do not return, and then you will have to take care of our women. 'Our women' was mother and little Isabeal, aged two years.

How do I do that? I had asked. I'm not big and strong like you.

No, not yet, he said, but you will be one day. Remember Alec, you have Alfa's blood. This means that the Moon will guide you.

I had wondered what that meant for a time - until the day, when father didn't come back. We were camping in the woods, or so mother said, though we were moving farther and farther away from our home in one of the outhouses of the large Pack House of the New Moon Pack, with every passing day. And one day, during supper, father shot bold uprigt, listening for something. Then he rose, kissed mother on her mouth and Isabeal on her forehead.

You are human, Sorha, they won't smell you, and possibly not the children either, as they haven't shifted. But you'll have to go, and fast. And then he had turned to me. He knelt, put a hand on my shoulder, and looked into my eyes. The Moon will guide you, Alec, he had said. And then he left, and I never saw him again.

The following night, the moon was full. I sat in the opening of the small canvas tent, while mother and Isabeal slept inside, and I looked up at the moon.

"Moon," I asked, "will he come back?" The moon didn't answer, but somehow I knew in my heart, that my father had died. And I had accepted it.

"Moon, which way do we go?" And again came the sensation, and odd knowing, a certainity perhaps. I didn't matter which way we went, we would arrive where we were going soon enough, and all was going to be fine.

Knowing this, I climbed into the tent, to see that Isabeal had awoken, and she looked at me with her big eyes.

"It is going to be all right, Isa," I had said. "I'm looking after you now."

Ever since that day, I have looked to the Moon, asking her for guidance, whenever I felt uncertain of the path I must take. 'The Alec before' had no worries, and if he ever felt the need to discuss what he was doing, he went to his father. 'The Alec after' was a child still, but he was now tasked to be the man of the family. And for the first time, he had understood what the Moon meant to wolves. Not in any words could he explain why, or what is was. But he somehow knew, that she was there, looking after his family.